Deathgate

The new captain of the ships appears to get things in hand over the next day

He insists that the group, for the most part, stay out of sight in order to avoid creating more issues amoung the crew.

He basically has everyone stay in the brig area, but the doors are not locked and there is no guard kept.

The party gets a chance to talk with the elven captain, away from Hugh about stuff and learns some things

Learns more about what was up with the old captain (he was an asshole remote elven royalty who got his job through nepotism, this was his first captaincy. )

Learns a little about the soul-capture of the old captain (only applies to elven royal bloodlines)

Captain relays his general concerns:

His ship is 'by default' part of the resistance now.

Other elven ships likely to attack if they are spotted

Humans will attack because they are elves

Probably still some crew members loyal to the old captain/elven royal family that are looking for a way to un-rebel themselves

Some chat occurs with regards to water, and Drevlin and elves and humans. it is explained that humans don't have flying ships.. their magic doesn't 'do' that. They can more-or-less control dragons. But dragons will NOT fly into the maelstorm. So it has been easily for humans to steal water from elves than to try to get water from below. (historically)

Plan is to go to an 'outlaw' dock, and let people off who want off. As well as the soul-mage.

Says Hugh talked him into taking Bane up to his dad to get some kind of reward, but we need to restock first, for supplies. Its a long trip, and as far as he knows, no one has ever flown a ship through the firmament up there.

There is an interesting conversation between Bane, Otoc, and Limbeck. Bane is looking for Otoc's thoughts on the war that Limbeck and his folk have started, and how he thinks the Gegs will fare.

Limbeck seems confused and taken aback.

It gets explained that the lack of water resupply will likely cause a retalliation by the elves.

And the humans might get wind of the lack of new water and also head down there, causing more strife.

Wonders what the Gegs will do and how they will fare

Limbeck thinks this is a little preposterous and is sure, once he talks to the right people, that everyone will see reason and be able to come to an agreement of mutual understanding and respect.

Bane and Hugh (who was listening), and Otoc seem dubious

Limbeck comes away from that conversation very.. thoughtful and anxious

Arundl contacts Xar and gives an update

Xar starts to express interest in Bane, and his apparent affect on people around him and his dad. (Arundl does not tell him that the entire group is under the influence of Bane), might be a good 'mouthpiece' for him if he could be returned to him.

Xar also seems interested in making sure Limbeck returns to Drevlin to urge on the rebellion there.

A day or so later, while the group is hanging in the brig, a large commotion and alarms go off topside.

After a few moments, an elf runs down and says the captain is requesting the help of the party. The ship is being attacked by elven ships loyal to the king who consider them rebels.

The party splits up a little, some running up immediately, while others take a round or two to buff.

Alfred holds Bane back, who wants to go up and watch.

When they get to the top, they see that 2 elven ships (smaller than this one) are attacking and boarding. The crew of this ship is fending off one of the ships, but the captain asks the party to take care of the other one.

Big fight ensues

Because our group manages to hold off the other ship, and kill their wizard, and make their captain and ship retreat, the crew manage to take out the other ship, causing it to 'sink' into the depths below.. burning on the way.

The captain says their fight was greatly complicated because some crew from his own ship turned and helped the other guys. They are gone now (he hopes). One of those traitors was the ship's main pilot. They now only have their backup pilot (and the captain who knows how.. but is not as good as a real pilot). That's enough to get them to the outlaw port.

or maybe not

Team makes their way back around to the main entrance of the Sartan area in the Factree. They find Lof there, with a few other WUPP friends monkeying around with the statue tryinng unsuccessfully to open it

All but Lof run away when the party shows up

The party opens up the door and heads in, leaving Tolm up top with the key to hold the door open.

Lof gets really frustrated, because his friends won't believe him that a door in the floor opens up here, and they won't come closer to look while any of the party are up top. They are too scared.

The party heads downstairs, and finds Otoc asleep in a holding cell with no obvious way to get inside. They try using magic device, to no avail.

They use the tiger to track Otoc's scent to a secret door entrance, but cannot figure out how to open it.

Arundl starts beating on the glass to crack it open, and it starts a fight with several Large Spider constructs

Its a close fight, but the party wins, and rescues Otoc.

They then find his stuff in another holding cell, and break down the glass to get it. No more spider constructs attack. But they do notice smaller spider constructs avoiding/scuttling away from them.

They leave the Sartan complex

They decide to just hang out at the Factree statue to wait for the Welf ship.

In the night, a Geg tries to quietly approach the group.. seems to be looking for Tolm.

Celeb notices him, wakes most everyone up. Arundl threatends to flatten the Geg if he comes any closer. The Geg is clearly having a strong internal conflict between leaving and doing whatever he came to do.

Once Tolm is awake, the Geg yells out a message to him saying "Bane would really like you to come and talk to him at the Copper Jail" and run away!

Tolm feels compelled to go, lacking any reason not to, so the party heads there.

Otoc stays OUT of the station, he wants to avoid Bane talking to him. He knows he'd be compelled by him.

Arundl and Celeb wait in the hallway and try not to fall under Bane's influence, but don't work hard enough to avoid it and fall under his compulsion.

Tolm winds up talking with Bane, Hugh and to a lesser extent Jarre and Alfred about the Welf ship and getting off Drevlin.

Basically, Hugh (and by extension, Bane) are afraid that Tolm and his friends are going to fuck things up and make it so the Welf ship doesn't land, so they can get off.

He wants them to hang out here, in jail, to calm down the High Froman so that the High Froman will get the Welf to land and hand over the lot of them as prisoners.

Bane says his Dad thinks that's a good idea and they should do it.

There is some discussion about taking over the Welf ship, and confiscating weapons (or not), and etc.

The party also learns a lot of Bane, Hugh, and Alfred

Bane is considered to be the heir of the Human king (Stephen) and queen (Anne), but is actually the biological son of the First Myteriarch Sinistrad. How replaced the Human King and Queen's real baby on its first night with Bane

No one knows the fate of their actual baby.

On the following Day, Sinistrad showed up, offered his congratulations and blessings to the baby to the King and Queen, and gave the baby his magic necklace

There has always been this effect emanating from Bane that prevents people from doing him harm.

The King's wizard recently undid enough of the enchantment to enable the King to hire Hugh the Hand to assasinate Bane

Hugh is apparently an assassin of some reknown to both humans and elves.

the plan was for Hugh to assassinate Bane and leave his body on the frontier of the war between the Humans and the elves to help bolster the King's justification for renewing the war with the elves

That didn't happen. Hugh's currently plan is to take Bane back to his real dad for a reward.

The elves are apparently in the middle of a civil war that was sparked during the war with the humans.

Some kind of song causes elves that come under its influence to abandon their aggression towards the humans.

Otoc tries very hard to avoid getting told that Bane wants him to hang in jail, but the party tracks him down and brings him back

Hugh teaches the 'song' to everyone, including Jarre, who is going to teach it to WUPP Gegs and have them show up when the Welf ship approaches.

Day of the Welf ship arrival

Lots of Gegs, including a large WUPP contingent are in the square waiting the arrival.

The party, accomanied by a lot of coppers and dignataries go up to the top of the water sending hand.

the High Froman signals the Wlf ship, and eventually they send down the captain, his wizard, and another shipman when the water doesn't turn on.

The Froman offers the set of humans to the Welfs as prisoners

The captain eventually accepts the the ship starts to decend a bit to onload the prisoners.

The WUPP Gegs start getting excited and begin to sing and play their instruments. Very badly

Hugh boards first, and there is clearly some kind of recognition and discussion between him and the first mate who is waiting for them. Along with roughly 30 elves warriors armed, arming weapons at the party and looking ready for the shit to go down.

All the elves have some kind of whistle in their mouths, ready to blow, except the first mate.

Limbeck gets onboard and start to make a speech about this great opportunity for racial discussion and alignment and blah blah blah.. no one is listening. Limbeck doesn't notice.

Hugh and the first mate reach some kind of understanding, then the captain reboards the ship and some kind of honor-fight occurs between the captain and the first mate.

the ship starts pulling away as they fight, and a bunch of WUPP Gegs reach the top of the platform, singing and banging and making a ruckus.

Jarre and Limbeck bid farewell, and Jarre gets the WUPPers to retreat with the promise of treasure being dropped below.

the first mate and the captain fight. Hugh subtly distracts the captain, and the first mate kills him.

the captain's wizard captures the captain's soul, apparently all elven nobility's souls get put to 'use' after they die to serve their people.

The new captain explains to Hugh and the party their predicamin. they are now mutineers.. and should probably join the rebel elves eventually, but they need to figure out what to do with the the wizards and the potential problematic/loyal to the king elves

there are human slaves in the galley powering the ship. The group is not to go near them.

They get shown the impressive ship piloting/helm area and its complicated ropes and pulleys that are used to guide the ship and its magic and make it fly

Hugh winds up having a long discussion with the Ship's captain. Talks him into taking them up to Bane's dad, but they need to stop for resupplies and to let certain people have a chance ot get off the ship before they need to get killed.

The party is in a bad place.. surrounded by elven warriors who don't trust them, any number of them may be willing to act on killing them to make themselves not seem traitors. Elven ships can/may attack them since their ship has rebelled and is not delivering water. (and did not get water delivered to the elven continent like it was supposed to)

Human dragon parties will attack them onsight if seen.. cuz .. you know.. they are at war.

And its not clear if the party could even fly this ship on their own.

so, they are currently flying to a 'outlaw' elven port to resupply. It should take about a week to fly there.

like that's hard to do

Otoc, Arundl and Celeb make an assault on the Sartan lab area, with Jarre watching in the hallway.

The 2 green guardians, and the 2 rune guardians on the wall quickly overwhelm our heroes with a series of 'Lawful Hammers' and other nastiness and they run away.

As they are licking their wounds…

Tolm suddenly remembers he can cast "knock" as a means to try to open the statedoor

He casts it.. and giving the spell a little extra mythic boost seems to do the trick and the door opens! YAY!

Tolm, Peeta and kitty Katniss rush inside

A small amount of silliness ensues where the parties look like they might attack each other.. but they don't. :)

So, the wayward team members are brought up to speed about the Sartan complex and the exploring that has occured so far.

They plot about how to take down the guardians of the lab room

So, now bolstered with additional firepower, the group makes a second attempt. Jarre watching from the hallway.

It goes better this time and the team pulls out the victory! Hooray! Though Jarre gets confused a bit as several team members are seen running in and out of the room several times during the combat

They find a +1 ring of protection (Sartan wave magic based) in the room, which Tolm refuses to wear and more importantly, several thousand gold worth of raw materials to make future magic items with.

Everyone goes down a long flight of stairs futher inside the complex and get to an antechamber for a VERY large room, that appears to be full of some kind of hibernation chambers.. or .. coffins.. or something.

There are thousands of them.. and after noticing that there appear to be Sartan in them, the team quickly plants Jarre outside the room. Otoc gives her the magic cookbook and tells her to learn to make him something nice

Jarre is literally walking in a daze, and doesn't argue much. She more or less does what she is told to do.

So the party explores the big room. They find lots of little 'spider robot' sized access panels throughout the length of breadth of the walls, and on the backside of the 600ft long room, another doorway out of the complex.

They examine (but don't touch!) a few of the coffins looking into them, and see a number of Sartan (probably) based on their appearance, hair coloring, and location. Their ages range from young looking to old, male and female. All unrepsonsive in their tubes.

They exit the room in the back without disturbing anything in the room. They are fearful of waking of thousands of Sartan and having to fight them.. or having to fight lots of lots of the spider constructs.

Arundl takes a moment to call Xar and update him on what they found.

Xar seems surprised that they need to ask his advice on what to do. The opportunity to potentially kill thousands of Sartan seems well worth the risk of at least 1 or 2 party members! Get on with it! sheesh!

The party doesn't act on that immediately,and explores a little more, following some stairs up that leads to an exit from the complex, that apparently empties out into a unused section of the KickseyWicksey.

So.. THEN they decide to go show their friends to big statue thing in front of the window with the upsidedown dish and try to give it a command.

Arundl goes into the room, buffed up, by himself which the rest of them watch through the windows.

All the runes in the room and the statue light up when Arundl walks in.

Arundl tries to give a command for "Help".. and it doesn't work.

The room seals, and all the runes try to cast things on Arundl. The 4 sleep ones clearly don't work, but he makes his save for the 4 other ones so we don't know what that does.

The statue rises up and releases some kind of breath weapon, and releases what appears to a Mindfog into the room. Arundl fails his save, so now all his will saves are at -10.

He decides its time to leave.

Fortunately, his badge still works and he's able to exit the room before something bad happens to him.

No one else seems interested in trying to give instructions to the statue.

So they make a plan to examine and try killing the Sartan.

Their biggest concern seems to be their ability to kill several thousand Sartan in the 4 days they have before the watership arrives.

They cross the room, and put Jarre at the top of the stairs that lead to the exit. Otoc tells her not to look, but she peeks.

Then seems really sad that she peeked, and goes back into her depressed state.

Otoc places her with the magic cook book at the top of the stairs near the exit and tells her to read and wait

The group mostly go into the big room again, to the nearest Sartan container.

Tolm mans the door to try to keep it open

Otoc and Arundl find a handle and open the container, and it opens no problem.

Inside is the body of a young man. His body, room temperature but well preserved. He does not respond to his container being opened.

Peeta examines him and declares him dead.

Otoc and Arundl decide to cut his head off just to make sure

So Otoc cuts his head off with one swipe.. and then the room's defenses kick in.

Many spider robots start pouring into the room, but the party is ready and beats a hasty retreat to the exit doorway.

The robots move first to the container of the damaged Sartan, then pursue the party ouut the exit and up the stairs.

The party doesn't stick around to watch, they run up the stairs, open the exit door as quickly as they can, then grab Jarre and pull her out the door.

It shuts behind them.. and in doing so, Tolm's danger sense dimishes. They do not appear to be pursuing them outside the complex.

They are in an unused loading bay area, but after leaving and flagging down another geg or two are able to quickly figure out where they are.

Jarre says she wants to see Limbeck

Some discussion about whether the party should let her go, go with her, head back to the Factree ensues.

At this time, Otoc discovers that Jarre accidentally dropped/left the magic cookbook behind when they grabbed her in her hasty exit.

Otoc is mad

Otoc is very mad. He doesn't know whether to kill Jarre,her whole family,all of WUPP or what to do with himself.

Jarre really wants to leave and asks if they are going to stop her.

They don't, and she leaves. Presumably to head to the copper station to find Limbeck

Otoc wants him damned book back, so the party goes to the Factree.

They send Tolm into the complex with the tiger, and make it all the way down to the exit stairs where they had grabbed Jarre. The book is not there.

Otoc is REALLY mad

They all go into the complex, and Celeb casts "locate object" to find the book.

It is on the bookshelf where they first found it.

So.. they all head back through the complex to leave.

But when Otoc enters the large room with the himbernation chambers, the shit hits the fan

Spider robots start pouring agressively into the room

Most of the rest of the party is able to rush through the room fast enough to evade most or all of the spider robots, who make passing swipes or attacks at them, but seem focused on Otoc.

Otoc, in his heavy armor is too slow and is quickly surrounded and overcome by the spiders who subdue him.

Arundl flies over his brother to see if he can help in any way, but really can't.

The session ends with Otoc beaten unconscious and carried away back into the heart of the complex by hoards of spider robots.

Gods are trouble

WUPP Gegs and Froman-Gegs and Coppers all start getting into a ruckus, the WUPP Gegs are badly outnumbered

Alfred fainted

Bane and Hugh start getting pulled away, in the direction of the High Froman who makes a quick exit, stage right.

Limbeck and Jarre run out and start pleading at the Gegs to stop fighting.

Arundl and Otoc decide to wade into the fray. It appears they seem to be trying to 'free' Hugh and Bane.. but Hugh and Bane don't appear to want to be freed, and let themselves get ushered away

Arundl and Otoc hurt a lot of Geg's, mostly Froman and Coppers

WUPP Gegs and Copper gegs stop their fighting long enough to assist the Gegs that Arundl and Otoc have injured

Though blocked by masses of gegs, Peeta and Tolm move towards the side of the building that Hugh and Bane are being escorted out of, and watch the general direction they are taken.

Limbeck gets caught up with the other WUPP members, as they retreat/get arrested by the Coppers and taken away in the direction of Hugh and Bane

Jarre just starts looking sad, and goes to attend Alfred, since no one else is helping him.

Arundl and Otoc hang out around the statue, and stop being up defenseless Gegs after it is clear they are retreating and that Hugh and Bane aren't looking to be rescued.

Peeta and Tolm tail the Coppers taking away the WUPPs, Limbeck, Hugh and Bane. (we'll come back to them later)

Alfred is revived by Jarre, and as he stands up appears to inadvertantly trigger something that opens up a set of stairs that decend under the statue. Celeb and the tiger fall in, but the tiger jumps out quickly and chases after Peeta.

Alfred doens't appear to notice what he did, and instead inquires after where Bane was taken and starts to walk after them.

Jarre seems interested/fascinated with the stairs.

Celeb gets caught in the hallway/stairwell when the hatch closes after just one round and explores a little bit. It appears to be some kind of Sartan structure. Sartan runes line up the hallway in front of him and where he's at.

Celeb can find no way to re-open the hatch

Arundl and Otoc mess around with where Alfred touched the base of the statue and manage to re-open the hatch.

Arundl, Otoc, Celeb and Jarre decend down the stairs as the hatch closes behind them

Peeta and Tolm quickly go back to the statue to see what's up and sync up with their friends, but they are gone. So they leave a note :)

Peeta and Tolm pass Alfred at the start of their journey tracking the coppers, and get his best guess of where they went. He guesses the copper station and heads off on his own to get there.

They track the coppers back to their station, after some misadventures involving and wooshy-woosh and a driver who clearly doesn't like Peeta. This probably saves them several hours walking.

Peeta and Otoc have no trouble entering into the holding cells/copper station, which appears to be a former set of large vats that resemble something like beer vats

They find most of the WUPP folks in one of the holding cells, and that Limbeck, Hugh, Bane and Alfred are in another. Alfred having gotten there ahead of them.

Peeta offers to rescue them. Hugh gives him a look that indicates he thinks Peeta is crazy

Hugh doesn't want out. Hugh wants off of Drevlin. The HIgh Froman said he's going to give them to the Welves when they come back in 2 days. And he wants to get on that boat.

Bane, after holding his talisman, confirms that he agrees that Hugh's plan to get off the island is the best.

Peeta doesn't think that's a great idea.

Hugh asks him if he has a better plan for getting off the island. It becomes clear he does not, and so Hugh resigns himself to waiting out the 2 days in his 'cell'. (The door is unlocked, he could leave whenever he wanted, as if the Gegs could really stop him)

Peeta and Tolm leave disgusted, and go get 'Lof' from the other cell to join them to find Jarre

By the time they get back to the statue, everyone is gone so they settle in to wait. Their note was still there.

Inside the Sartan hallways, they find a number of locked rooms. One looks like a lounge, some look like boardrooms with large tables and lots of chairs.

They find areas that look like they were designed as holding cells with no obvious ways in/out of their holding areas.

Some closets full of inactive spider-drones

They find one room with a large statue in the center, and an open window that takes up the entire far side of the room.

The window opens up into a large cavern, open at the bottom and appears to view down into the center of the maelstrom below.

At the ceiling of the cavern appears to be a large, inverted satellite dish.

When the group approaches the large statue, it lights up and intones, in a language they understand "Instructions?"

They ask it to unlock all the doors in the complex.

The status responses with its eyes lighting up red, and several sartan runes along the walls of the room lighting up and glowing. It "Invalid Instructions. One attempt remaining"

They leave the room.

They eventually find another unlocked room, with what appears to be some kind of laboratory inside

When they enter, 2 guardians with green skin and long white hair that appear to walk several inches above the floor appear. They say "You are not authorized to be here, leave immediately"

They leave.

They find a doorway into what appears to be a set of living quarters, which they explore and find some loots. And a necklace with a Sartan rune on it. Arundl puts it on.

All of the locked doors appear to open for Arundl now.

They fight some overgown plant critters in one room

They fight some floating runes that come alive and try to put the party to sleep a lot in the board room. But thankfully, Arundl is immune to sleep which results in the runes being dispatched.

They another door to a set of stairs that decends deep down into the complex.

They try to go open the hatch they came in from, but find no way to do that.

They were trying to figure out what to do next, had decided that they want into the lab with the 2 guardians.. and we ended the session.

The trip up from the mining rock gives everyone a chance to talk some more with Limbeck. He tells the group stuff about Drevlin (the big dwarven rock), and Gegs, and about how generally peaceful things are.

He tells them about the monthly visit from the Welves where they collect water by hooking up a Pipe from the sky and then drop their rewards for the Gegs down below. He discusses how many Gegs are unhappy that only the Froman and the Clark skiffs get most the rewards because they really don't have anywhere else they need to be when the Welves arrive. This is the main reason that most Gegs who are in WUPP are in it. Limbeck wants them to be more excited about the idea of understanding WHY the Gegs maintain the KickseyWiksey. Why the great machine does what it does.. so that they can empower themselves and understand and make things better. But no one else (except maybe Jarre a little bit) is inspired by that idea. They just want more rewards.

A description of the rewards leads Otoc to believe that the Welves are just dumping their garbage on Drevlin. Limbeck scoffs at this, proudly showing off his giant feather.

As the Helping hand gets closer to home, the noise of the KickseyWiksey becomes noticable over the ambient noise of the Maelstrom. This machine noise of pops, bangs, clicks, zaps and wooshes never ever stops and makes it generally hard to hear anything more than 20 feet away on all of Drevlin.

When the party reaches the landing area inside of Drevlin, they are greeted by Jarre and Lof. Jarre is super-excited to see Limbeck. A lot of immediate questions are asked about who is with him. Limbeck introduces them as Gods he saved down on the rock. There are about a half dozen other Gegs around, but Jarre lets the party know they are all members of WUPP.

The loading bay is not a closed off area, and other Gegs are moving around, but no one is really paying any attention to the odd things going on in the loading bay. No really curious at all.

The group wants to get somewhere safe to rest, so they load up inside of some of the ore-pushing carts used to take rocks to the input area of the KickseyWiksey. Arundl disguises himself as a dwarf and helps push. The rest hide under some tarps and ore and are pushed back to WUPP headquarters. And again, no other Gegs question the odd procession of ore carts being pushed out of the loading docks towards some residences.

WUPP headquarters is just a hole in the wall, dug out at some point in the past by the KickseyWiksey and then abandoned. Limbeck explains that most people's home are KickseyWiksey holes. Occasionally the machine comes back and digs more, and when that happens the Gegs just find another hole. It doesn't generally move fast enough to be dangerous. Limbeck is especially proud of his current home, it has a 'Window' high up.. a hole that looks out at the Maelstrom. He says it gives him a unique perspective.

So the party rests, and sleeps uneventfully.

At some point in here, Arundel uses his walky-talky rune to check in with Xar. He tells Xar about Gegs and Drevlin. About Limbeck and the KickseyWiksey. Xar impresses on them to not expose themselves to the Sartan, to lay low. Xar observes the Limbeck may be a good catalyst for chaos, but they need to learn more about the situation. And he wants to know if they have seen any Sartan, and is a little surprised to learn they have not. He suggests to pursue that and keep looking for those Sartan!

The next morning there is some discussion about what should be done now. Limbeck and Jarre would like to have the new 'Gods' accompany them to help build support for WUPP, by having them help explain that Welves are not Gods. Occasional and repeated talk about the prophecy of Welves judging them and 'raising up' the Gegs being wrong, that these new Gods are going to judge them… and other things seem to confuse Limbeck and Jarre.. a Lot. But they try to roll with it.

Eventually, everyone decides they want to go see the High Froman. So they start the long journey it will take to talk there (6 hours). They briefly try to use a Woosh-Tube to make it shorter, despite Limbeck explaining they are too small and only for 'official business'. Commendeering a Whoosh-tube eventually fails, when its pilot zooms away after Arundl asks him to show him how they work.

It is explained how the High Froman's offies and living quarters (as well as the High Clarks) are near the Factree at the top and near the center of Drevlin.

The top/center of Drevlin is right in the middle of the eye of the Maelstrom, and is the only place on the enter rock where a Geg may be able to see blue sky. Being on the surface of Drevlin is otherwise a very risky endeavor due to the rain, lightning, wind, hail and otherwise unpleasantness of the surrounding maelstrom.

The eye is the place where the Welf dragon ships come monthly to collect their water. It being the only place they could possible stay stable long enough in a flying ship to do any kind of coordinated thing with the ground.

The factree itself is a GIGANTIC empty one-room building (like 1/4 on a side), which is the legendary birthplace of the KickseyKicksey. There is a throne there, and a statue of a Manger, and is used by the High Froman and Headclark for all official big-deal ceremonies. Like when they convicted Limbeck of heresy and decided to launch him off of Drevlin.

On the way there, the party passes through ALLSORTS of interesting places with Gegs working on all sorts of different things in the KickseyWicksey. All kinds of poduct-goodies are created by the KickseyWicksey, for free-use amount the Gegs. Food, Basic goods of every kind (clothing equipment) is produced somewhere. Water is abundantly available in pools and wells. Anything the Gegs dont use, they either recycle or discard off the island. They even find a station that makes Cupcakes! (which they come back to later) Along the way they try to drum up support for WUPP, many Gegs find it very difficult to completely ignore the strange folks walking amoung them and rumors are started to spreadh. Limbeck tries to make and read from his speeches, and Jarre and Lof just try to drum up support and it seems to be working to some degree.

Limbeck seems pretty uncomfortable with some of the talk that occurs about stealing and taking things and just doing whatever they want to do that the party folk discuss amount themselves.

Anyway, they make a pretty big fuss along the way, and as they go Gegs keep lining up to see them and talk/listen to them. They even make public they are going to see the High Froman.

This is getting too long, so I'm going to summarize:

They reach the Factree. its basically empty. The throne doesn't appear to be interesting, except that it was clearly not made for a dwarf but instead someone of human dimensions might be comfortable in it.

The statue is a 12-15 ft tall human man in robes, holding something that looks like an Eye. Limbeck says the high Froman does a little light show with it whenever he's here to impress the masses.

The party fiddle with the eye until they get it to light up. It does a little hologram display showing all the major islands of Arianus lining up, with Drevlin at the bottom in the middle. And then it craps out and starts over.

They visit the High Froman's office, except almost no one is there. Just some under-under secretary who lets the group know all the real forman are out on official business.

The party strong-arms the poor guy into showing them where the High Froman's home is and decide to wait there. Its in a hallway of some kind of apartment building (an actualy building with halls and stuff)

Limbeck and Jarry get very uncomfortable with that. And even more uncomfortable with the talk of breaking into the High Froman's house and excuse themselves and depart.

The party breaks into the high froman's house and look around.. they don't relaly find anything interesting. They go into a few other homes and find only one book, which appears to be a children's book teaching them about their place int he Mangers' plan.

They camp there a couple of days, but no froman come back.

They have a similiar "no one is there" experience when they check out the resisdences and officies of the Clarks.

They decide to wait in the Factree. Arundl setting up some big impressive Magic-Mouth display in anticpation of trying to eventually drum up big audiences and convert them to join WUPP. Then Arundl and Otoc go off to try to talk to Limbeck and Jarre while the rest wait it out at the Factree

Arundl and Otoc find Limbeck and Jarre, and use diplomacy to talk them into believing them when they say they were not trying to cause a problem/hurt anyone (yeah right). Limbeck likes the give a big speech plan at the Factree and says he'll be there in 4 days.

2 days later, Jarre runs up to the party in the Factree and says they have to come with her. its super important, but she doesn't want to talk about it here. The party is suspicious, but follows.

Jarre takes to a place about 1 hour away, and gets them into a semi-private room tucked away in one of the halls/sewers/caverns and tells them that the High Froman and Head Clark have found Gods of their own and have started to parada them around Drevlin

The party immediately thinks they should go kick these other god's asses!

Moments later, Loff shows up and says the High Froman and Head Clark and heading to the Factree with their new Gods and are trying to quickly drum up a lot of Coppers and other gegs to give a big-speech!

The party wants to go to see these other gods. Jarre points out if they just try to walk there, the High Froman and Head Clark will know they are coming well before they get there and will probably just disappear into Drevlin before they arrive. She says she knows a better way to get there, under the Factree.

As they party takes this route, the 'secret way' turns out to not be that secret anymore. Rooms and areas and tunnels having been hollowed out by the KickseyWicksey and geg's have moved in. So.. they still get a following, but no where near as big as if they had taken the main route.

They come up under the Factree, with several dozen Geg in tow. Just the party emerges at first, Jarre keeping the rest back.

The other gods appear to be some kind of human fighter, a human boy who seems very good looking and wearing nice clothes, and his older balding attendant/chamberlain.

Arundl and Otoc decide not to immediately attack and go talk to the human fighter. Tolm winds up talking to the boy and the balding man who follows, with Peeta and Celeb listening in.

The fighter is "Hugh", the boy is "Bane" and his attendant is "Alfred"

Hugh explains they crashed on Drevlin after elves attacked his dragonship and he just wants to get out of here. But they are caught up in some stupid Gegian high-drama about gods and shit.

Bane declares he IS a god! Alfred shakes his head and mouths "no.. he's not"

Hugh thinks trying to take over the next monthly Elf water-ship is a good idea, and confirms (despite Arundl's bluff) that only Hugh knows how to fly it.

At some point, Tolm and Bane disagree about something.. but Tolm realizes his mistake and is convinced that Bane is right and that he should listen to him. Soon Peeta is in the same boat.

Then the Froman Geg's see the party talking to their gods and he sends in many many coppers and gegs and clarks to prevent the party from stealing his gods!

Then the WUPP Gegs pour out of their entry to help protect their gods, and a melee between the two forces starts with most of them just slapping at each other ineffectively.

Alfred looks around at the pending peril.. and faints dead on the floor.

Bane and Hugh do wind up getting grappled and start to get pulled away.

With the threat of immediate death-by-clockwork devices removed, the party takes a few moments to assess their situation. Arundl looks around on the rock he's on, and the rest of the party figure out how to get everyone onto the same big rock.

Otoc takes a few moments to try to get some answers out of Limbeck, but is flustered by his answers which, though genuine, are non-helpful.

The threat of the surrounding storm picks up, so the party climbs/crawls/gets carried over Otoc's chain to get everyone onto the big floating island together, just before the storm gets obnoxious and super-threatening.

They head up on top of the big rock, and see that it is relatively flat on top.. about the size of a city block, and pock-marked with holes about 30 feet in diamter. Limbeck explains that those have been dug out by the KickseyWicksey which mines rocks like this one. And that we better get into one of the holes to get out of the full-brunt of the storm which is picking back up. Taking a look up into the sky, they can see the metropolitan area sized floating island about 1/4 mile above them.. with some mechanical arms extending out of it towards other rocks below it. It is a very impressive sight.

So the party jumps into the hole with Limbeck, and spends some time discussing things like. The name of the world is "Arianus", and the big island above is called "Drevlin" where the gegs live. He talks about his rebel organization WUPP and how he was convicted of heresy and thrown off the island. About his girlfriend Jarre, and how they came up with a plan for his return, to show that the 'Mangers' have chosen him and to add renewed vigor back into their WUPP rebellion.

Apparently most Geg's join WUPP with the goal of getting better pay, and fewer working hours. But Limbeck mostly wants to use it as a way for the Geg's to improve themselves. To take time to actually come together, to understand the KickseyWicksey and take their deserved place in the grander scheme of things instead of just serving the Welves. He explains how, when he was younger, he stumbled upon a crashed Welven dragonship that had dead Welves in it. And so he does not believe they are gods like the High Froman and Head Clark would have everyone believe. And that all Geg's have believed for generations.

Anyway, the plan to get back up to Drevlin involved him making a mark on one of the mining arms that will occasionally come down to the islands below. (like the one they are on). One of the WUPP dwarves that work in mining and refining will see it and send down a helping hand to rescue him. A helping hand being a mechanical transport device that is occasionally used to repair/fix a problem that the clockwork machines can't fix on their own.

He shows the party his piece of chalk he intends to mark the arm with. It has apparently not occurred to him that chalk probably won't stand up very well in the rain.

It also didn't occur to him that it will be challenging to approach the rapidly spinning mining arms while they are working to mark them.

During discussion about this problem, they also note that occasionally while the mining arms are coming down from Drevlin, they get struck by ambient lightning which makes them stop moving. At which point, some clockwork dudes seem to exit the arm and to something to 'fix it', before going back into the arm. And then the arm gets moving again.

Limbeck asks for the assist from our heroes in executing the plan to mark a mining arm so that WUPP will send down a helping hand.

After much discussion, and general fear of the clockwork dudes, they decide to use Otoc's infinite rope and tie a flag to one of the arms. They set themselves up around one of the mining holes that an arm is descending into and make it happen, after tying a cloth flag with an L written on it to the rope.

Well, as soon as the rope knot gets pulled tight around the mining arm, as predicted, the clockwork machines emerge and head on down towards the rope and flag. It takes the first one all of 2 seconds to 'snip' the rope, cutting it free of the mining arm.

At which point, Limbeck observes "Huh, didn't see that coming…"

Then Otoc rushes over and cold-cocks Limbeck so hard, that he starts bleeding out on the ground of the island.

Peeta responds differently by immedately loosing an arrow to pin the flag into the hand of the mining arm. And succeeds! His arrow being shot hard enough and well enough that it actually sticks into the mining arm.

This, unfortunately has the result of having a whole bunch of clockwork dudes come out of the arm and start attacking. But, it also seems to have stopped the arm from ascending and moving.

2 types of clockwork spiders come out, 2 large ones and 5 medium ones. The one that was already down near the hand of the mining arm immediately moves to 'snip' the arrow off the arm, and the other 4 medium dudes, and the 2 larger dudes move in to fight.

The group recognizes these workers as the same types that appeared near the chain below.

The two big ones have a Sartan rune on their chest that glows, and do the vast majority of the fighting. During the course of the battle, they reveal themselves to have mythic abilities! To make things worse, the little ones mostly follow the big ones around healing them (or other damaged clockworks), or loosing nets on party members to entangle them!

So there is a big fight.. Celebrilad winds up going over and precenting Limbeck from bleeding out early in the fight. At some point, late in the battle, Limbeck gets an idea to climb onto the arm and try to scratch it with a rock. He needs to scratch it two times.

Once he gets the first scratch on, the surviving smaller robots start to move towards him. He doesn't notice. And then he succeeds on scratching it a second time, right as one of the mechanical beasties closes in right next to him! AAARGH! He runs away!

The party manages to stop the clockworks from repairing the scratches, and finishes them off. Once they are all dead, the arm starts retracting again up towards Drevlin. And several hours later, a large 'Helping Hand', which is a large glass bubble being literally carried by something that looks like a hand on the end of the mechanical snake descends to the island to pick them up.

Its a very tight fit, with the tiger included, but the group scrambles in and starts heading up to Drevlin!

leaving so soon?

So after some additional discussions and investigations, the group decides to spend a month of time investing on preparing for their trip through the DeathGate.

A portion of that time, Xar is absent, having gone back into the Labrynth to attempt to find and save some additional Patryn.

During that month, the party accomplishes the following things:

Arundl enchants a boatload of magic items

Otoc fills up one of the local builds with a lot of rope. Literally fills it up

the group learns about the 'boat' that is being provided them to travel through the DeathGate

They get a 'shelter' built on top of the boat

They learn as much as they can about the history of the universe, the labyrinth, the nexus and the sundered world.

They learn how to use the controls to steer and navigate the boat

Eventually Xar comes back, asks how the prep is going, and then shows up for the launch. He talks through some of the concerns that the group has like..

What's on the other side? (he doesn't really know)

Why does he think they will live if they go in? (not clear.. confidence in their ability to survive. summoned animals did not. The DeathGate was designed for travel between the worlds according to his studies)

The group launches and they enter the gate.. some kind of gravity effect crushes things that move outside of a 'tunnel' that the ship and the party are travelling in. But it does not force the boat to stay in that tunnel, so it takes more concentration than expected to navigate the boat. There is also some kind of gravity in effect that pulls 'down'.

They discover it would be 'very bad' to go outside of the safe-tunnel, when fruit they through and summoned animals get squished once they get too far away from the boat.

After an hour, the pinprick of light that was the nexus side disappears, the side and surroundings are totally black. But something keeps things lit on the boat so they can see each other. Some kind of sourceless ambient light.

After 8 hours, nothing new has happened, but they start taking turns and shifts piloting the boat.

After 14 hours, they start seeing small lights way up ahead.. after another hour of travel these break up into smaller pinpricks of light that seem to be scattered around the 'space' they are traveling towards. These soon reveal themselves to be spheres of electricity.

It becomes apparent that one of the sphere is going to come very close to the boat in the direction it is travelling. most are far away.

When they think they are 30 minutes from the close sphere, a pinprick of light directly in the center of their travel appears and is different than the others. They believe it is the other side of the DeathGate. They will reach it 30 minutes after they pass the sphere, if what happened at the entrance holds steady on this side.

As they get closer to the sphere, Otoc tries to through an apple into it, but misses by a mile. Then they shoot an arrow at it.. and some kind of electric snake looking things comes out and starts investigating their boat at a distance.

After a couple of rounds of investigating the boat, the party shoots arrows at it and then it attacks the boat and then the party. The snake gets too close at one point, and gets smacked around, so it goes under the boat and starts to seriously damage the boat (which they didn't think could be damaged).

As the boat becomes harder and harder to steer, some Lightning Mephits show up to join the attack on the boat. Otoc braves hides in the shelter during most of the fight. The party manages to dispatch them quickly, but the main threat of the snake attacking the bottom of the boat continues.

Things getting desperate, Arundl ties himself to a rope and swings under the boat to try to attack the snake, being held by Otoc. After hitting the snake one time though, it just moves out of range of Arundl and keeps attacking.. a part of the boat starts to break apart.

Piloting the boat now is extremely hard, and the boat and the party are frequently dirfting out of the safe zone and are crushed and damaged.

The tiger goes into the keel of the boat, and swipes at the snake, which is now reachable since a part of the boat has fallen apart. After getting hit the additional time, the lightning snake thing flies away, but the boat is still badly damaged.

the boat continues to veer off course, and causes party members to get crushed and even fall unconscious. But they are awakened, and wind up buffing the ranger enough to keep the party able to pilot for the last leg of the journey, out of the DeathGate.

And into something worse!

They findthemselves near the center of a giant maelstrom, being buffeted and thrown about by winds and rain and hail. Above them appears to be a giant floating island.. miles in diameter with other smaller islands around it and under it.. some apparently chained to the main island.

They pilot towards one of the smaller chained islands.. but the winds and rain prove too much, and they are unexpected tossed and the boat smacks into the island. Some of the party are thrown over 50 feet across a gap to a larger island, but some are stuck on a smaller one that appears chained to the big one.

Their boat (or what is left of it), is caught, stuck in the chain that connects the islands. Being damaged as the giant landmasses move and pull against the chain.

Additionally, what appears to be a dwarf comes running down a ledge from above, yelling at the party on the smaller island asking if they need help. He speaks with a deep accent, but can be understood.

The group on the same island (Arundl, Otoc and the tiger), hide behind an illusion, and are tempted to push the dwarf off into the Maelstrom as he looks over the edge, but decide not too.

Eventually they reveal themselves to the dwarf, who introduces himself as "Limbeck", and looks like he is totally in awe.. asks if they are "gods". (I don't remember how/if the party responded to that)

As the party stands up and gets itself righted and tries to understand where they are, clockwork creatures come out of the holes that the chains disappear into on both islands. They ignore the party expect when they get too close to the chain. They appear to be working on the chain, trying to dislodge the boat, greasing up the chain, doing whatever they need to to make it 'work' again. Then two of the larger ones turn and face the party.. eyes start glowing and a Sartan rune on their chests light up.

The party backs off and the clockworks do not attack, but the chain basically winds up finishing off the job on the boat that the snake and the crash started. And the islands start floating away from each other.. but stabilize at between 80 and 90 feet apart.

We end with the party having gotten their own chain between the two islands, and figuring out how to get across.

After 2 days of waiting, patience is finally rewarded when a little kobold-like creature wandering into the area in front of the final gate door.

Vilous keeps the rest of the crew silent and watches. It does not take long for the creature to turn his head in the direction of the cave they are hiding in, and screech in fear! For a moment, Vilous believes they have been spotted! But then, from above and behind them on the cliff, a fire drake swoops down and blast the critter with his fire-ball breath.

The creature turns and runs towards the gate hallway and door, with the drake following close behind. The critter scrambles at the door, pushing on it, trying to get away but the gate does not open for it. A few moments later, the fire drake finishes the screaming creature off, and flies off with it. During the commotion, the party sees another fire drake from a nearby drake stick its head out to see what the commotion is about.

After a few moments, when things seem calm, that second drake sticks its head out of the cave again and spits a fireball onto the rough ground in the middle of the clearing, then goes back into its own cave. The behavior is odd, and inexplicable.

At this point, everyone starts to discuss their options. It is noted that if they get spotted by a drake while they are in the cave, the drakes have the range and ability to spit fireballs into the cave repeatedly and fry them all. That if they start fighting, they will need to spread out.

A concern is raised that there may be other drakes and caves. Everyone starts looking around the clearing more carefully, and spot another semi-hidden cave entrance. They don't see another drake.. but there could easily be one inside.

It is decided that they will try to sneak out and up to the hallway and final gate, but numbers and the laws of probability prove to make that untenable. Vilous, manages to make it out of the cave and start on his way there, but its son Otoc immediately slips as he starts to work is way over and makes a bunch of noise, and the drakes hear it.

The second drake from before peaks his head out of its own cave as the party scrambles to try to get out of theirs and spread out. Some fall, but others make it out and for the most part, the party is spread out when the drake shoots its fireball. Arrows fly, and the drake takes a little damage from Tolm and so it is Tolm who takes the brunt of the drakes initial attack.

Arundl decides, once everyone else is out, that he'll just stay in and cast enlarge on himself, hoping to wade into the fray in a round or two, but he slips and falls when climbing out of the cave.. oh well.

At this point, a third drake from the semi-hidden cave sticks his head out to see what all the fuss is around. The fighting drake screams at it, as if to say, 'back off, I got dibs', and the 3rd drake seems to be intimidated for the moment. It spits off a fireball onto the ground, where the party saw the other drake spit a fireball, not hitting anyone.

Vilous manages to get the drakes attention, and it lands and starts attacking him, getting in a vicious critical hit. But Vilous has made himself resistant to the fire damage, so while hurt.. is still in the fight.

With the drake landed, all the melee combatants move in the join the fight. The drake looks surrounded and not long for life.. when from behind them, the original drake flies in, attacking Arundl.

The archers and party tiger manage to take down the drake that had originally engaged them. And the original drake starts moving in to claim the group, who has starts to take a bunch of damage from fireballs and bites.

This enrages the 3rd drake, who gets into a screaming fit with the original and they have a brief altercation, as if deciding who gets to eat the party.

At this point, Vilous basically tries to claim the attention of the drakes and screams at everyone to get to the gate. Feeling like he is the best equiped to fend them off and possibily get away. He doesn't think they will be able to take down 2 more drakes.

The party listens for the most part, and starts dashing towards the gate door. They find it does not 'just open' like previous gates. But shortly realize that if they cooperate, and have one person each put a hand on the 2 circles on the gateway doors, that they swing open. A blinding light source coming from the inside, making it hard to see far.

Some of the party dash inside, including Otoc, who encounters a large, imposing Patryn who looks quite surprised and happy to see them.

It is at this point, that tragedy strikes. While distracting the remaining drakes, out of the ground where the firedrakes had been spitting fireballs, a huge ant swarm oozes out and covers both the dead drake and Vilous himself. Vilous is apparently immediately overcome with some kind of poison and collapses, apparently paralyzed.

There is a moment of indecision.. but the party does not like the odds of rescueing Vilous, and taking on 2 drakes and a swarm of ants without losing more of the party. So they retreat through the gate. As the last party member makes it through, their father is clearly being eaten by the ants. Once all are safely inside, the mysterious patryn closes the gate door.

Welcome to the Nexus

The patryn introduces himself as Xar, and welcomes the party to the Nexus. He notes that it is probably not what they were expecting. He explains the following things, after leading the party inside to safety and healing.

1. He was the first person to make it to the Nexus, and that happened many gates ago.

2. When he got here, the place was deserted. If there were supposed to be Sartan here, monitoring us and the Labyrinth, they have been gone for a very long time.

3. He has spent those years learning and decipher what he can of the Sartan runes using the books and materials they left behind.

4. He found an odd book that details the history of the creation of the Sartan and Patryn races, and the creation of the Labyrinth. This book was notably newer and in better shape than other materials he's found here.

5. The history:

a world of mensh, that had a nuclear holocaust.

Arising from the ashes of that were the Sartan race.

Sartan were stronger and able to access the magic of the wave, which is the mensh could not so they exerts control over the world.

Bringing the mensh races in line with their vision of society

'the wave' desiring balance, caused the Patryn race to arise.

Patryn, using the wave differently than Sartan rebelled against Sartan rule.

The Sartan, were losing control, and split the world up, casting the Patryn race into the Labyrinth to rehabilitate them

6. Xar explains that he has been going back into the Labyrinth and rescuing as many other Patryn as he can. There are several dozen here in the nexus.

7. He shows them the "DeathGate" which can supposedly connect all the parts of the universe that the Sartan had split up. He has managed it to open it a little bit. But has seen no response fromt he other side.

8. All the baby bears he's sent in to explore it have never come back.

9. This party are the only other people he knows of to make it to the nexus on their own, without his help so he wants to recruit them into his big plan to kill the Sartan and take over the universe as the Patryn are destined to do.

10. He shows them his big mythic-making machine, left behidn by the Sartan, that inscribe a Sartan rune over the Patryn's own heart-rune and unlocks mythic ability. He will do this for them, if they swear fealty to him and his plan.

… to skip to the end. Other members of the party take some convincing, or slightly adjusted oaths of promising to stick to at least the first part of the plan. He even lets Otoc go mythic so long as Arundl promises to keep them in line. They try to figure out how to use the machine, but only learn that Xar is using something that gets consumed to make the machine go. They don't know what that something is, or how many Xar has.

The plan is:

1. Go through the DeathGate.

2. Don't let the Sartan know you're there.

3. Scout, determine what is up with the world over there.

4. Don't get discovered. Don't let the Sartan find out we're free.

5. Find souls that could be useful or convinced to help us.

6. Don't fucking let the Sartan know we're free.

7. Find opportunities to spread chaos and sow problems that we Patryn will be able to come in and resolve, saving the world from the mess and being heroes ready to take over.

He shows them the magic flat barge they will be able to use to fly through the Deathgate.

So at the end of the session everyone is Mythic tier 1 and getting prepped to go through the DeathGate.

The Final Gate

Vilous has the 5 of them holed up in a cave. They have been there for 2 days, watching and waiting. They are so close.

Just 100 feet between the 5 of them, and what looks like the final gate of the Labyrinth. Just 30 yards to the Nexus. To freedom! To an end to the hell that the Sartan put their people, the Patryn in, for the last thousand years.

Vilous is eager and excited, but 40 gates of running has taught him that the Labyrinth punishes those who get cocky or impatient. And so he insists on waiting. He is not going to let the Sartan's beast snatch away this victory right at the last moment.

The doors stand closed on the other side of the small channel, on the other side of the small open area. Tempting in their proximity..almost irresistible! But he will wait.. he demands they wait! They will see what the Labyrinth intends to do to them in its final push. He will not get caught and killed! Not now!